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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 18, 2013 9:53:46 GMT -5
Yes, its the Tashkent bean, not the brown and white one. If I get a good crop, I can send some seeds over to you. Got it and thanks. Normally I'd make a similar offer with regards to my stuff, but I'm realistic enough to know by now that between weather and furry pests, getting ANY crop off ANY beans for me is usually nothing short of a miracle. But at years end, I'll see how things look and see what I can do. I'm not sure about the Fort Portal mixed (I have a nagging feeling they are going to turn out to be really long season and heat needy). But maybe I'll have some spare Armenian Giants, or grey speckled (though those seem to have a germination problem, only 1/4 germinated.) |
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Post by blueheron on Apr 18, 2013 11:56:52 GMT -5
No worries. I had problems with grey speckled too, none of them germinated in my garden.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 18, 2013 16:29:33 GMT -5
No worries. I had problems with grey speckled too, none of them germinated in my garden. Well as I said, I've got 1 (the 1/4 should be read as "one of four" not "one quarter" I split the pack with someone) but I was coddling them in individual peat pots. Whether it makes it any farther or not I have no way of knowing (I honestly don't remember from my planting yesterday if the germinated one was one that had JUST germinated and had only the tiniest trace of a radicle poking out (a state a lot of my beans get to and go no further) or it had sent out a legitamate anchor root (by which point they usually make it the rest of the way) And I probably WON't Know until harvest time, since I removed all the seed coat traces from the beans this morning (I usually do this once the beans have gotten a good hold; I've had a few cases where dry weather caused the seed coat remains to re-dry and "lock" the cots back together, making it hard for the true leaves to get out) so I now have no clue which is is (I know which pot it is in, but there are three bean plants in that one, all different. I THINK it's the smallest one, but am not sure.) Actually, I have a bit of a theory as to why the speckled did so poorly (though it is very depressing in it's implications). Assuming I read the seed zoo manifesto correctly, Richters puts the zoo together as a sort of middleman, it doesn't grow out the seed itself (if it did, they probably wouldn't ever run out of anything; at least for good). So as far as I can tell, the seed in each packet is either the original seed (i.e. what the seed hunters actually picked up from the market) or from the first growout (I don't know if there was one but since the seed packets tend to mark the point of origin of the seed in the packet as either Italy or the US as opposed to say, Armenia, Georgia, or Uganda where the varities are from) so I sort of assumed at least some of them had one growout to increase seed amounts to the point where sale was feasible.) So I'm wondering if part of the problem may be that some of the seed in the seed zoo is getting a little, well.....old. The Grey speckeled beans are from one of the oldest, if not the oldest "spurt"(batch of listings) in the Seed Zoo (as are the Bantu (which while having better germination than the grey speckled, still had a non-viable seed count of 3-5 (so 20-33%) and the fort Portal jade (out of 28 seeds planted I think 7-8 actually germinated and only 2 lasted long enough to make plants) so the intial collection has to have been at least 4-5 years ago (How long has the seed zoo been there? I came in late, so I honestly don't know). No disrepect to Richters (I honor them for thier commitment to perserving these crops, and am infinitely greatful they have done so) but maybe some of these African beans just don't have that long of a period of viability (in the tropics, they really don't have to). I'm sure the New Mexico cave has a very long period of viable dormancy (any bean that could have some examples survive for a couple of MILLENIA sort of has to) And most of the Balkan Beans are probably pretty tough too (plus both of those are from later groupings so they are probably a lot fresher) But the African ones...I just don't know. I suppose that is an even stronger reason for getting more of them in my next order; get 'em, get 'em in the ground and get 'em growing while that is still possible. |
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Post by blueheron on Apr 18, 2013 17:20:14 GMT -5
Of the African beans, I was really only interested in the speckled grey, of which mine were brown not grey. I don't know when Seedzoo started either, as I only discovered it last year.
From the site, it appeared to me the only seed that was actually planted after collection by the middleman or others associated with the project was Alicia's Chilean Warty squash. (I've got 4 of them left growing in 6" pots before transplanting them into larger containers next week).
It's a shame that they didn't plant at least a few packages themselves at Richters. It's not like they don't have the space! I might be heading there myself this weekend for one of their seminars on "growing figs in Canada". I'll track down someone and ask them about Seedzoo's history and where they see it going in the future.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 18, 2013 18:31:38 GMT -5
Of the African beans, I was really only interested in the speckled grey, of which mine were brown not grey. I don't know when Seedzoo started either, as I only discovered it last year. From the site, it appeared to me the only seed that was actually planted after collection by the middleman or others associated with the project was Alicia's Chilean Warty squash. (I've got 4 of them left growing in 6" pots before transplanting them into larger containers next week). It's a shame that they didn't plant at least a few packages themselves at Richters. It's not like they don't have the space! I might be heading there myself this weekend for one of their seminars on "growing figs in Canada". I'll track down someone and ask them about Seedzoo's history and where they see it going in the future. Yes mine were/are brown too (well the speckled ones are, the unspeckled are either black, blue, or purple depending on how the light hits them). To be fair to the Richters staff, a good portion of the stuff in the Zoo couldn't be propigated by them. The Bambarra Groundnuts, the Kemarogan and probably a fair portion of the greens and the aubergines africanes are fully tropical. To propigate them in Canada's climate, you'd need a greenhouse (and probably a pretty damn big one) And that's not factoring in that some of the cowpeas and such probably have day length issues; growing them so far north from the point of orgin is probably a challenge (I grow a lot of cowpeas from selections I make from seed from China, and so far only 4 of them have proved to be day neutral enough to actually flower for me. And don't even get me STARTED about the rice beans and the adzuki's) Good idea about asking if you are going to be there anyway. While you're at it, it might not be a bad idea to broach the subject of seeing if it is possible to put a packet tally (a note of how many packets of a given variety are still available, like Tom has on his site) on either the site or the Seed Zoo forum. Given the small number of packets they seem to get of most things, something like that should be possible, and would be very useful in prioritizing purchases. Assuming you bump into Conrad himself, you could also check whether, when they went through the Fort Portal Jades and pulled out all the non green ones, they kept the off types. Now that the variety is no longer for sale, I wouldn't mind buying a packet of offs (at least I know that bean will GROW for me). |
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Oct 31, 2013 9:22:07 GMT -5
I might write about my beans this year later (terrible month of may for the seedlings, and some critters liked my dwarf type plants a lot...) but I can tell you I liked galina's 'monastic coco' beans a lot, early pole drying bean with purple/brownish yin-yang motif, good for our climate and beautiful beans, a kind of 'pea bean' if I recall well:  |
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Post by robertb on Oct 31, 2013 11:25:40 GMT -5
A selection of runers; this year I grew Black Magic, Black Pod and Mrs Cannell's Black, and let them cross. Next year it'll be the seeds from tose, no doubt crossed, plus whatever else I have that I fancy adding. I'll definitely add St George, which is semi-stringless and very prolific, maybe other varieties.
I'll grow my standard climbing beans, Trail of Tears and Cosse Violette, and Kew Blue, which is proving very reliable. I haven't thought beyond that yet.
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Post by samyaza on Oct 31, 2013 14:34:25 GMT -5
Maybe Tarbais beans, variety Alaric. It's sold at high price to prepare traditional cassoulet but you can grow them yourself.
They're pole vulgaris beans, really productive of large, white, almost skinless seeds. Taste is really fine.
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Oct 31, 2013 15:23:14 GMT -5
Tarbais beans are a registered localised name (don't know the exact English term) like champagne or le Puy lentils. You can't grow them if you're not in France near Tarbais and use that name. I haven't tasted them yet, but they are said to have their superior taste not only because of the race but because of the (micro-) climate, or is that just the mythology surrounding a great traditional local product?
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Post by raymondo on Oct 31, 2013 15:51:51 GMT -5
I don't think there is an English expression for things like AOC (Appellation d'origine contrôlée). Registered local name is a pretty good descriptive translation.
If you just grew the bean for personal consumption and did not try to sell it as a Tarbais bean then couldn't you maintain the name?
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Oct 31, 2013 16:11:06 GMT -5
As long as you don't sell them commercially you can call them what you want...
I'm curious now: did anyone here grow 'Alaric' Tarbais beans outside of the Pyrenees? Does it work? Is it a hard race to grow?
(MUST.RESIST.ADDING.TOO.MUCH.NEW.VARIETIES.TO.MY.LIST...AARG...)
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Post by steev on Oct 31, 2013 19:32:43 GMT -5
So long as you don't go commercial, you can call any fruit or veggie anything, except "Too Late For Dinner".
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Post by littleminnie on Nov 3, 2013 19:34:55 GMT -5
I grew Rattlesnake and Purple Pole together and saved TONS of seed. Have lots to trade and maybe will use some as dry beans. I didn't save any bush beans. My plan for next year with bush beans is a green and a yellow again but way more interval planting and tearing them out when they get past peak. They get leaf miners or some other pest and suffer and take up space. I have a lot more successive plans for next year.
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Post by steev on Nov 3, 2013 20:55:16 GMT -5
I expect to grow a lot more longbeans (P. unguiculus) I really like them as greenbeans, and they grow well for me (unlike P. vulgaris), also they are relatively easy to tread out, when dry, so they may be useful as a dry or sprouting bean. They make huge quantities of biomass.
I also intend to plant more lima beans, as they seem to give me a fair dry return; I need to find some large butterbeans for shellies, though, since I do enjoy those.
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Post by blueadzuki on Nov 3, 2013 23:24:27 GMT -5
Hard to say, since most of my plans tend to change up until the last minute but tenitively
1. Re plant the Bantu seed I got from this year; this time, should have enough plants to be able to actually EAT some without dipping dangerously into the reserve seed. Probably less Fort Portal Mixed next year (I did OK, but the bantu ripens so much more evenly and quickly and has show itself better at handling cold temps, which could become important if we have another spring like the last one.
2. More speckled grey, assuming that a better percentage come up (I got about 25-50% germination with 4, so with the 30 or so I have now, I should get 10-15 plants. And hopefully, the fresher seed I get from them will have a better germination rate than the old seed I'm buying.)
3. More Adzuki beans, planted indoors later (so I don't end up losing them all to late frost when they get so big I have to plant them outside.)
4. More Lablabs, planted indoors earlier (in the hope that larger, more mature plants will pull the flowering back 4-6 weeks and mean I can get ripe seed at the other end before the frost shows up (this year I got to full size pods, but they were still totally green).
5. probably less rice beans (as fun as trying to get this short season version is, the fact that 90% of the crop fails along the way and the remaining 10% become a hopeless snarl unless you plant the seeds one by one (which isn't feasible with a crop where you need to put 1000 starter seeds in to get 20-30 producing plants. Plus, unless I find some more bags of the right type of beans in C-town between now and then, I don't have the reserves to plant on the scale I did last year, at least, not if I want to work for the alternate colors.
6. couple giant peanuts already started, though those will probably stay indoors.
7. Might start some Sesbania aculeata indoors around February (seed shows up in packages of senna pretty often, so I have a decent supply) to see if I like the taste of the flowers. Planted some year before this one, and it grew quite well, but didn't start flowering till frost came, so maybe starting indoors might give necessary edge.)
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